My occupation

The other day, I had a little trouble completing a form. Simple enough, it asked for my occupation. Maybe ‘florist’ would do, I thought. Sure enough, I arrange flowers into bunches and bouquets, I create arrangements for gifts, weddings and events, and in December, I make lots of Chrismas wreaths. But, unlike most florists, I don’t have high street premises. I don’t import my flowers from Holland, or further afield for that matter. I don’t have boxes of Oasis, (a single use plastic) to stick stems into, and I don’t create arrangements from prescribed lists ( 5 of this, 7 of this and 10 of that). So I felt that the term ‘florist‘ wasn’t such a good description after all.

The next term I considered was ‘flower farmer’. Just like those working the fields around us, I use the land to produce crops. Not sheep and cows for me, but instead flowers are my crop. However, my little patch of Berwickshire doesn’t seem large enough to warrant the grand name of a ‘flower farm’. Our growing area is little more than the size of a couple of tennis courts, though we do pack the plants in tightly. I don’t have a tractor, just a spade and fork from the Zero-waste shop in Dunbar. I don’t spray my crops with chemical pesticides and fertilizers. We have a small flock of hens and ducks that do the job. No, by no stretch of the imagination do I consider myself a farmer.

What about ‘market gardener’ then? Now that seems more like it. My nails are mucky, my boots are muddy and my jeans have gone through at the knee. In the potting shed, you will find rows of clay pots, hoes, trowels and sieves. And outside you will find row upon row of plants. But these are not plants that produce fantastic fruits and nutritious vegetables like the market gardens of yesteryear. No, my plants produce (mainly) flowers from pinks to paeonies, and roses to rudbeckias. So I had to discard the ‘market gardener’ label too.

So, I was left with no other option than to invent a description for myself. I needed a term to convey the idea that I grow flowers, here in our garden in the Scottish Borders, and then I cut them to make posies, bouquets and all manner of arrangements. I guess like a state of the art car, I am a hybrid; a grower and an arranger. And can you guess what term I came up with? Well the next time I need to state my occupation, I shall type in the box ‘Gardener florist’.